About

Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame

$278,623

pledged of $40,000 goal

1,556

backers

The award winning game Orcs Must Die! has at last made its way to the table top! Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame dares you to preserve your stronghold sieged by orcs. Teamed with Robot Entertainment our new game is precisely adapted to the tabletop environment. It includes scores of great plastic figures of all your favorite heroes, plus hordes of orcs, crossbow orcs, kobolds, gnolls, trolls, ogres, and more. Build a fortress, then watch swarms of baddies plunge through your defenses.

Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame is designed and published by Petersen Games. Our friends at Robot Entertainment are providing art and other digital assets. However, Petersen Games is solely responsible for creating and running this project. Find out more at Petersengames.com.

How Is It Played?

Each individual game supports 1-4 players, who must co-operate to survive the enemy onslaught. You and your friends each choose a hero as your game avatar. Each hero has an individual sheet, with his characteristics, special ability, and superpower, that you need to save for the right moment. Each hero also comes with a heroic-sized figure and special weapon upgrades.

Choose a map – you can select a map we’ve included, or create your own! A typical map is made up of from 4 to as 10 or more tiles. The game has a lot of pieces, but the map itself fits just fine on a typical gaming (or dining room) table.

Finally, the fight begins! Each turn, waves of orcs and other monsters move pitilessly across your map, relentlessly aiming for your poor Rift. You and your allies race around the map, placing traps strategically and facing invaders in hand-to-hand combat.

You spend skulls to place traps, making you better-able to hold off the orcs, gnolls, and other enemies. Beware – over time your enemies accrue strength, too! You have to face three onslaughts, and with each level, your foes increase in might. If you don't lay solid groundwork for your defenses in the early part of the game, you may face doom later on!

Combat is easy and fun – you roll various colored dice depending on the weapon and upgrades you own. Remove “killed” enemies from the map, (to see them replaced by new waves each turn).

The game builds up to a crescendo of doom. the last few turns see you run desperately trying to finish off the last few opponents before their final assault destroys your Rift.

What’s this about playing head-to-head?

That’s right – if you own both Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Order Edition AND Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Unchained Edition you can pit the Order against the Unchained in epic conflict.

You and your friends split into two groups – one team fights for the Order, and the other controls the Unchained.
Each side boasts its own heroes, armies, Items, and traps. Your hero can defend your own citadel, or lead your side's minions inside the enemy lair. Some heroes can be set to each task, or switch off duties. Since the game supports up to 4 players per side, everyone has a chance to beat down the foe!

Do you want detailed information on our Heroes and our Figures? Look no further. We have a page with detailed information about the Heroes and their stats as well as the process we are using to insure the best quality miniatures for all of you.

Just click on the image below.

Two Separate co-operative Games which combine to form a third PvP game!

Our project actually consists of TWO separate boxed games! One is based on the heroic Order, while the other is for the Unchained. Both are complete stand-alone games. In Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Order Edition, you’ll play your favorite heroes such as Maximilian the War Mage, Gabriella the Redeemed Sorceress, and others, while fending off the villainous orc onslaught. In Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Unchained Edition, you play opposing heroes, such as Bloodspike the Brutal or Midnight Twilight's Razor, beating down assaults by human soldiers, lions, dwarfs, bears, and the like.

Again, if you or your friends own both the Order and Unchained editions, you can go head-to-head, so in a real sense, if you get the Hero pledge, you are getting three games in one!

As a special incentive, we are also offering our best-selling game of Cthulhu Wars to interested backers at a discounted price who also pledge at the Hero level. You get EVERYTHING in the Hero pledge, including all Stretch Goals & Exclusives, plus a copy of Cthulhu Wars at a great price!

Do you like video games, too? We realize that many of our audience are fans of the Orcs Must Die! game series, or at least may want to check it out, so each pledge includes absolutely free codes to play the classic Orcs Must Die! and Orcs Must Die! 2. And even that’s not all – you ALSO get a beta code to participate in the early version of Orcs Must Die! Unchained!

Plus every pledge includes a special custom skin for Orcs Must Die! Unchained – Robot Entertainment’s much-anticipated upcoming release. For now, this Kickstarter campaign is the only place you can get this custom skin! If you pledge at the Hero level or higher, you get TWO custom skins! Strut your stuff and show off your cool skin(s) while playing in the Orcs Must Die! Unchained beta (that you got into thanks to your pledge)!

All our digital rewards are designed for instant gratification! While obviously it takes time to produce the high-quality miniatures for the completed board game, there is no need to wait on digital rewards. As soon as our campaign is complete, the project funded, and you’ve filled out the pledge manager, we'll e-mail you your digital rewards - you can immediately play Orcs Must Die!, Orcs Must Die! 2, AND the Orcs Must Die! Unchained beta. Then, when we've completed factory production, you’ll get a terrific boardgame in the mail!

What About Stretch Goals?

EVERYTHING is coming your way!

We will charge shipping costs after the Kickstarter concludes, based on the actual prices we incur. We will collect this through our pledge manager post-campaign. Shipping prices vary hugely around the world, and this way we can customize costs per customer, which lets us offer more stretch goals & add-ons.

We ship your rewards all at once at our cost to international hubs. They then make their way to your home from regional distribution centers.
We estimate the following shipping prices for the following pledge levels:

We are still looking into options for Brazil, which is typically difficult to sort out for project fulfillment. We will post more information about this as the campaign progresses, but if you are not willing to pay high shipping for Brazil, please consider waiting for more information.

All of these prices may change based on how many backers we get from each part of the world (the more per country, the cheaper it gets for us to ship there). We are capping the shipping prices at $50 per pledge - you will NEVER have to pay more than $50 no matter how remote your location, regardless of the size of your pledge. We realize uncertainty is not always pleasant, and we vow to update and clarify the shipping prices as soon as humanly possible.

Also note that while we have tried to get the firmest answer possible for the game's release, unexpected delays are, by definition, unexpected.

With the following countries, backers may need to pay VAT or import taxes. We are partnering with a shipping company with over 30 years experience, and they have said we cannot avoid having backers pay import taxes in these countries:

Israel

Norway

Switzerland

If there are any others, we will let you know as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT Acolyte Pledge Shipping Information!

Our $50 maximum shipping promise does NOT apply to the Acolyte Pledge, because it must ship twice (first Cthulhu Wars, then later Orcs Must Die!)
In addition, because all Cthulhu Wars copies for the Acolyte pledge must ship from within the United States (for logistical reasons), this pledge is only at a reasonable price for backers in North America. If you live outside North America, we strongly recommend that you NOT pick the Acolyte pledge, because shipping might cost as much as $100! Shipping prices are reasonable for this pledge within the USA, Canada, and Mexico, so no worries if you are there.

Behind every great project, there is a talented team driven by a shared dream. Our dream began over 30 years ago, when Sandy got his start in the game industry in the early 1980s, where he first designed paper role-playing games. His best-known work from that time is the cult game Call of Cthulhu, which has been translated into many languages and is still played world-wide.

He also worked on many other role-playing projects, such as Runequest and Elfquest, and was instrumental in the creation of dozens of works.
In 1988, he left paper games for the computer game world. He has worked for Microprose, id Software, and Ensemble Studios, where he was involved with Civilization, Doom, Quake, the Age of Empires series, and Halo Wars, among others. Games from our team have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, and have received dozens of awards from the game industry.

Sandy Petersen brings all his design expertise to Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame – the game displays solid play, varied strategies, surprises, tactical tricks, and fun at every turn. You really have to think on your feet.

Risks and challenges

The game has been in playtest for months, and the testers are raving about how much they like it. Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame project is a solid product. All we need is the money to start publishing it.

A lot of work lies ahead. Game components need to be finalized and printed, miniatures created along with injection molds, games collated, etc.

However, this is not our first rodeo. We survived successfully shipping one of the largest, most complex Kickstarter offerings ever (Cthulhu Wars), and Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame project, while fully-packed games with components a-plenty, is straightforward by comparison.

We are a small but experienced team, and we seek to be smart in our planning and expectations. We are working with a first-rate manufacturer which has shipped many other successful projects and we have confidence that we can deliver the game to you in a timely manner. In any case, we will be happy to refund pledges if for some totally unforeseen reason the game can't be delivered (such as a huge invasion of extra-dimensional orcs.)

Our estimated delivery date is February 2016, but the factory assures us they can finish and ship more quickly. Despite this assurance, we want to be as conservative as possible in our estimates. (And remember, this is only an estimate.) Also, due to the logistics of international shipping, backers in different regions of the world receive their rewards at different times.

If uncertainty is not acceptable to you, please do not back our project and wait for the games to hit retail shelves. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $300 or more
About $300

ACOLYTE- $300. Get a copy of the famous best-selling Cthulhu Wars board game, PLUS Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Order Edition, PLUS Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame: Unchained Edition; plus all applicable Stretch Goals.